Man found slain in Troy

Children among the first to make grisly find in building stairwell; no arrests made yet

By JORDAN CARLEO-EVANGELIST

Updated 10:44 pm, Sunday, August 26, 2012

TROY — A 38-year-old man was found gunned down in the stairwell at the John P. Taylor Apartments between Front and River streets Sunday.

Police said the victim, described only as a white male who did not live in the building, was apparently shot to death and found about 1:30 p.m. on a second-floor landing of building No. 4, just south of the Congress Street Bridge.

And while police said it was an adult who made the initial grisly discovery and called 911, multiple tenants said a group of young children stumbled across the crime scene around the same time as they headed outside to play.

One tenant, a home health aide who said she was among the first on the scene, said the victim's face was already blue and his head surrounded by pooled blood when she tried unsuccessfully to find his pulse as her 6-year-old son looked on.

The young woman, who declined to give her name, said the victim's arms were splayed above his head and that there was also blood streaked or splattered on the wall.

Carmen Valentin said her 10-year-old son and 5-year-old granddaughter were among four young children also among the first to happen upon the body.

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"He says he keeps seeing it in his head," Valentin, 43, who has lived in the 10-story Troy Housing Authority building for three years, said of her son. "He said, 'Mommy, I didn't hear nothing.'"

Thankfully, she said, her granddaughter likely doesn't understand what she witnessed.

"I think that she just thinks that he fell and hurt himself," said Valentin, a mother of four and grandmother to two. The children continued to play on a nearby playground into the evening.

Valentin said she believes the children — three boys and a girl — were headed down from the fourth floor to play outside. Children, she said, often use the building's stairwells because they grow impatient waiting for the elevator.

Detective Sgt. Tim Colaneri declined to describe the nature of the victim's injuries, whether there were signs of a struggle or if a weapon was found at the scene.

Colaneri said the victim was dead when police arrived and his body was removed several hours later as evidence technicians pored over the stairwell and adjacent sections of the building, which is secured by locked doors and requires visitors to be buzzed inside. Residents said there is a security camera in the main lobby, but they were uncertain whether it records.

Colaneri declined to say whether investigators had any suspects or to speculate on a possible motive.

Some tenants said they believed the shooting happened much earlier than 1:30. One man who lives on the second floor said he heard no gunshots and had no idea what had happened until a woman banged on his door screaming that someone had been shot.

Capt. John Cooney, a police spokesman, said investigators could not say how many times the man was shot but that detectives might have more answers after an autopsy scheduled for Monday at Albany Medical Center Hospital.

"Good or bad, nobody deserves to be shot and killed," Valentin said, while others puzzled over the timing of the violence.